Normal
by Lily Finch
Summary: Pilot episode tag.  Sam didn't want to be normal, he wanted to be safe.


Title: Normal  
Fandom: Supernatural  
Characters: Sam, mentions of Dean, John, Bobby  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Pilot episode tag. Sam didn't want to be normal, he wanted to be safe.

Author notes: Okay so, what, the _sixth_ season of SPN is starting later this month? Writing a pilot episode tag probably doesn't make any sense, but being new to this fandom I had to start somewhere. *shrugs* Uh, this is my first SPN fic so we'll just have to see how this goes. Okay? Okay.

Disclaimer: don't own it.

* * *

Dean: "So what are you going to do? Just live some normal apple pie life, is that it?"  
Sam: "No, not normal. _Safe._"

-Pilot episode

* * *

Sam had always liked to do what Dean termed "freakish people watching." That always made Sam frown; he was _not_ a freak, he just found people interesting. His family mostly lived in apartments when he and Dean were younger and he would sit in front of the window and watch his neighbors go in and out. They were just so different.

One memory that stood out for Sam was the day Chuck Harding from A5 found a knife. It had been dumped by someone and was lying half-hidden under one of the bushes lining the street. He watched as the boy stared at it like it was some great mystery. Just as Chuck was about to pick it up, his mom rushed out the door with a bang. She was yelling shrilly at her son and yanked him right off the ground. They stood there forever, Mrs. Harding yelling, using words like "bad," and "get hurt." Sam didn't understand. His dad had weapons - which admittedly he wasn't allowed to touch either - and Dean had a butterfly knife (the name always made Sam laugh; Dean had a _girl's_ knife.) When Dean held a weapon, his dad used the words, "defense," and "for safety." _Weapons are for grown up things,_ his dad told him. Dean always looked rather proud at the implication.

Later Sam asked Dean if Mrs. Harding was a grown up, explaining the knife incident and how she hadn't touched it either. Dean had laughed, ruffled his hair, and said to not bother trying to figure out the neighbors. People were crazy.

Weird.

.

After Sam found out what their dad _really _did(he still feels embarrassed at the memory of himself at six, trying to explain to his teacher that his father was a nighttime, traveling mechanic), he felt proud of his dad. John saved people. Sam imagined John driving into a town and obliterating all evil, the town cheering and grateful in the knowledge that they no longer had to lock their doors. His dad was a hero; Dean was a hero (in training). Heroes were strong and fixed everything, and Sam had never felt safer.

When he turned twelve, his father and Dean took a job with a number of other hunters; the largest group he'd ever seen. John told Sam that he, Dean, and the other hunters were going to check out some suspicious activity around a suspected devil's gate, and would be gone for the week. He'd read about devil's gates in a book at uncle Bobby's and wanted to help. All heroes needed sidekicks and who could be better backup, or a better look-out than Sam? This argument went over about as well as all arguments with his dad; horribly. By the end of it, Sam had locked himself in his room and Dean said goodbye to him through the door.

Bobby came and picked him up eleven days later.

Staring at his brother and dad lying in the hospital, his two heroes, the two most powerful people he knew, Sam realized something. They weren't safe. Dean and John were still heroes, but now they were just human, and humans were prey to the supernatural. His _family_ was prey. Sam had never been more scared in his whole life, and that all-encompassing fear had followed him since.

Sam began to watch his neighbors with envy. They were all _normal_ families; father, mother, children. No hunters. _They_ didn't have a father that stowed guns and holy water in their trunk, coming back each time with more scars and alcohol. They didn't have a Dean who wasn't sure if he was an older brother or a mom. They were happy, life was good, and most importantly, no one was striving for martyrdom.

Desired.

.

He continued to train and help out on hunts. What his dad wills will be. His first major hunt happened when he was fifteen; something in Washington State was practically ripping people in half. Not a werewolf; more than just the victims' hearts were missing. All the deaths occurred either in, or near the woods. Sam was acting as bait, trying to draw the thing out and lead it to a covered hole they all had spent the last five hours digging. Things went wrong. It turned and ran off, to a close-by cabin that the Winchesters didn't know about. There was a married couple there vacationing for the summer, who hadn't heard of the recent deaths. The thing tore through them before Sam could get there. In the end, he managed to keep it in one place long enough for Dean and John to come and kill it, but the couple was still dead.

He knew he should feel guilty. Feel sad or angry about their deaths and he did, really. But mostly he felt like an idiot, because he should have _known_. Normal died on a ceiling in Kansas. His mom, like these people, had been normal and she (and they) had been far from safe.

No matter how many evil things his family killed, there would always be more. Those people John saved were only that temporarily; their futures weren't set because they were graced by the presence of the larger-than-life John Winchester. Hell, they didn't even know there was something to be saved from. 'Normal' meant to not know about the supernatural, to not know about the ever present, never ending dangers that lurked in the dark. _Forewarned is forearmed. _Normal wasn't _safe._ His neighbors weren't safe. All the locked doors and neighborhood watches can't protect them from a berserker.

Dangerous.

.

Years later he's standing on a street in Palo Alto.

"So what are you going to do? Just live some normal apple pie life, is that it?" Dean looked incredulous and angry.

Sam turned to his brother. He thinks of his apartment; salt lines nestled in grooves beneath windowsills and floorboards, protection symbols etched on the back of bookcases. He thinks of the knife hidden behind the socks and the shotgun stashed in the closet.

Sam shook his head, "No, not normal. Safe."


End file.
